Ilia Topuria celebrates his championship victory against Alexander Volkanovski during UFC 298 at Honda Center in Anaheim on February 17, 2024. — Reuters
Islam Makhachev’s coach Javier Mendez has identified the weak point of Ilia Topuria ahead of his potential superfight.
Topuria has become one of the biggest stars in all of mixed martial arts today following his knockout victory against Charles Oliveira in June to capture the lightweight belt.
‘El Matador’ has an impressive record with 17 consecutive victories and UFC titles in two different divisions.
The former featherweight champion is hoping to get a chance and make history by winning third belt at welterweight division.
However, he has to wait for Jack Della Maddalena and Islam Makhachev battle at UFC 322 on November 15.
Javier Mendez the coach of Islam Makhachev appears to have already started preparing for a potential fight against Ilia Topuria.
Mendez was recently asked about his game plan against Topuria to which he replied that he will keep his fighter out of ‘El Matator’ boxing range.
“I would say with him, stay out of boxing range, 1 million percent,” he told the Know Time podcast.
“He’s got the best boxing in the business in MMA. He even thinks he can beat [Terence] Crawford, that’s how confident he is in his boxing.”
He also praised Topuria’s wrestling and Jiu Jitsu skills.
“Your big task is to keep him away from you. And he’s got decent wrestling. From people I’ve spoken to who have trained with him, he’s got decent jiu jitsu also,” he added.
Mendez also revealed the weakness of Topuria where he can be trap saying he is almost complete package but his weakest link is the kicking area and grappling.
“So, he’s almost the complete package, but he’s not, he lacks in the kicking area,” Mendez explained.
“The weakest link on him would be the kicking area, and then you have to test your grappling with him to see if yours is better than his. We’ve yet to see how great it is. It’s not great, but we’ve yet to see how good it is.”